I’m not sure You exist, but if You do I have little doubt that You spend some of Your time reading Royals blogs. My primary question for you is as follows:

Seriously, what the hell?!

I ask it in all due respect, considering You are possibly the most powerful being in the universe other than the Koch brothers. What is it that us Royals fans did to make You so mad? No playoffs since 1985. Kyle Snyder. Injuries to Jose Rosado, Salvador Perez and now Joakim Soria. It’s all too much to be mere coincidence, the only logical conclusion is that You are somehow involved.

Soria is a fan favorite, a guy who has provided a large portion of the Royals enjoyable moments these past few years. He was someone we could be proud of and he was proud to be a Royal. Now, as things are coming together his arm in injured again. Did You smote his arm in vengeance? Why? Is it something we did?

I know there are a number of potential reasons that the Royals and their fans are not on your good list. Yes, the Royals hired Rush Limbaugh, but how could they have known who he’d become? Jose Offerman just kind of seemed like an odd-duck and he put up 5.0 fWAR in 1998. Did you hate the Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez trade too? Look, that was the old regime and none of us supported it, we’ve all learned to let it go.

You can’t be that mad, right? You let the Yankees win all the time and they have no souls. If anybody needed a smiting, it’s them! I know that Mr. K would do anything to win, but I just am not ready to believe that he sold the team to the devil for a championship in 1985. Sure they weren’t the best team that season, but they won when it counted. Sure there was the whole Denkinger…..wait, that’s it, isn’t it?

You stepped in during Game 6. It was YOU who made Denkinger call safe. You were rooting for the Royals, weren’t You? Look, I get it. Being God is a heavy business, what with all the deaths and prayers and what not. Sometimes an all-powerful creator needs to sit back and watch a baseball game. Clearly no being as caring and thoughtful as you would root for the Cardinals so you gravitated towards the upstart ballclub from Kansas City. Things seemed like they might not be going well for Your team so you slipped in a safe call. Who can blame you? Heck, imagine if the Royals had lost. We’ve read the bible, you have a pretty nasty streak in you. Nobody needed to see that again. Brimstone free since 500 B.C. right?

The Royals win, You’re happy. Then you feel a little bad for usurping that whole free will thing. But it was just one call, and it didn’t even really matter anyway. If Jorge Orta was out, the Royals would still win. Don’t be so hard on Yourself. We all make mistakes.

I think 26 years without being in the post season, the Ross Gload era and two different Yuniesky Betancourt stints is enough. You’ve pretty clearly handed the Cardinals a couple of World Championships and given them Pujols too. Can we just draw the line at this Soria injury and consider it all even? You seem to have lost some of your anger anyways, I mean if you were really mad you would’ve smoted Greg Holland’s arm (please don’t do that). The Royals bullpen is still strong and can overcome this injury, and maybe with another surgery we can have Soria back in a year or so.

Look, we’ve been wandering in this desert long enough. Our trial surely must be finished. We don’t need you to part the sea for us, just get off our backs for awhile. Let nature take it’s course. It looks like You’ve kind of moved Your vengeance to the Dodgers lately anyway. We’re totally cool with that. I mean, leaving Brooklyn, pffft, what was THAT, am I right?

I hope You finally consider our penance paid, it sure feels like it is. If you can put a little magic into Soria’s arm when it’s on the operating table, it would be kind of a nice gesture. Anyway, thanks for reading the blog, that is if you exist. If You don’t, well then….

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From a purely business standpoint, this kind of settles the whole “should’ve traded Soria when he was a hot commodity on a hopeless team” debate, eh?

Written by Kyle about 3 years ago.

I hate to say it, but Soria has probably/hopefully already thrown his last pitch as a Royal. He has an 8 mil club option for next year, right? There is no way the Royals will pick that up, right? Maybe he restructures the deal, and comes back for something closer to 1-2 mil. There is no reason for a team like the Royals to pay 8 mil for a 2 time TJ recovery. They have the bullpen depth, and could use that 8 mil in a lot better ways.

Written by Brian about 3 years ago.

Assuming he has TJ surgery, i think there is still value in picking up Soria’s $8 million option and i do not believe he has thrown his last pitch as a Royal. He is an elite pitcher when he is right and pitchers these days respond well to TJ…i dont know what the comparables are for pitchers that have had it twice, but if he comes out of this injury right…he is still a bargain at $8 million.

Written by Greg about 3 years ago.

Soria is quite easily my favorite Royal over the past 4-5 seasons, but I wouldn’t be willing to pick up the option at 8 million. Hopefully they can renegotiate and bring him back at a lower cost.

The list of 2 TJ surgery comebacks is small and not encouraging, but Soria is still relatively young whereas many of those guys were not. Worth a gamble, but not an 8 million dollare one, imo.

Written by rick about 3 years ago.

very rare for a pitcher to be successful after the 2nd tj surgery…i think i read somewhere that only 2 or 3 have had any success after the 2nd … so IF he does require the surgery, he is likely done

Anybody recall that Yost was booted out of Milwaukee after injuring almost a whole pitching staff?

Q: who is this year’s conditioning coach.
Q: what does the pitching coach know about injury prevention.
Q: how saavy is this managing staff when they throw Soria out there to pitch with a torn ligament in his elbow.

Written by Kyle about 3 years ago.

A team like the Royals should never spend 8 mil for a closer. Almost all closers have a very short shelf life. Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman are the only 2 that I can think that had significantly long careers. The contract they signed a few years ago was a steal. Not cashing in on it when it had its highest value was idiotic. They had trade offers at the deadline and offseason 2 years ago. They should have jumped on them then.

The Royals have their farm system setup for at least a few years. The bullpen should almost all make league minimum for 2013-2017. They can spend that additional money on extending talented players and adding that last piece.

Written by dohn joe about 3 years ago.

Everybody knew he would have arm troubles. Everybody knew he should have been traded at his peak two years ago. We could have gotten quite a bit for him and probably have a better rotation. But no. We hold on to him because we all know how important a good closer is to a last place team. His career is over and we have nothing to show for it.

This sucks, and not because we lost a closer. It sucks because we continue to overvalue our own players and do not proactively try to move them when the opportunity is there. Most closers are overrated, why hold on to one if you dont need to?

Written by Ted about 3 years ago.

Thank you for not writing a “he should have been traded” post. Kind of tired it…have been tired of it for three years now.

Everyone seems to be bashing the Royals for not trading Soria, but it should also be acknowledged they got it right by not putting him in the starting rotation.

And, essentially, he was traded for Jonathon Broxton and the Royals are better for it.

More perspective on Soria’s injury at KC-at-the-Bat dot com.

Written by nick scott about 3 years ago.

I agree the Royals should’ve traded soria, but not specifically because he could get injured. This is an easy moment to say “i told you so”, but the reason I think the royals should’ve traded him was to maximize value. All pitchers have an injury risk, I don’t believe soria was a greater risk than anyone else.

Written by Greg about 3 years ago.

nick,

The next question would be what was really offered for Soria? ChiSox just traded a younger closer on the same contract as Soria (I’ll grant he wasn’t as established as Soria) for a AA pitching prospect with middle of the rotation upside. I probably would have gambled with Soria’s staying healthy and effective just as the Royals did if that was similar to what he would have returned in 2010. We were SUPPOSED to be ready to compete in 2012 and a healthy Soria for 6 mil would have been a great part of that plan. Unfortunately Moore wasn’t able to build out the starting staff in time so it looks doubly bad now that we got nothing for Soria and are paying him 6 mil in a year where we weren’t ready to compete even if he was healthy.

Written by SWilson about 3 years ago.

A vengeful God indeed. Come on, we all know that Allah is striking down the Royals with the help of George Soros and it all leads back to the White Sox winning the world series as a precursor to the Obama presidency.

Written by Ted about 3 years ago.

Yes, injury risk and value maximization are the two reasons to trade a pitcher with Soria’s team friendly contract, but I kind of like seeing guys stay in KC beyond the point when they accrue trade value, and a contract like Soria’s made it easy to keep him around and enjoy watching an all-star caliber player (as opposed to a potential all-star talent, or a mediocre player or a below replacement level player).

To be honest, a good deal of my aversion to trading Soria was resentment at being denied the pleasure of developing any attachments to players. I feel that, along with the indignities of watching horrible baseball more often than not, one of the worst feelings suffered as a Royals fan is the apprehension that comes with realizing that one of our players is actually talented. We are always rebuilding, and outside of a couple guys like Sweeney we always know that the constant rebuilding will provide reason enough to trade away our best players, often well in advance of their walk year. But with Soria we had a guy signed long term who was actually both talented and fun to watch; he seemed to fit in KC, both in the club house and with the fans, and because of his contract we could dream that some day he would be closing out games for a winning ball club. With him the urgency to build for the futuere felt less pressing because the future seemed closer, and he looked to be a part of it. So talk of trading him always rankled me, as I feel we as fans have earned the luxury of Soria’s tenure in KC.

Anyway, as you say Nick, this injury is prompting too many “I told you so” comments, and it wears thin quickly.

Written by Frosty Maltz about 3 years ago.

Nick/Job,

Don’t worry, Mike Sweeney will be there at the pearly gates with St. Peter to wipe away your tears. And, if God is merciful, hopefully Jeff Weaver, too. Those who are last in this world, are first in the kingdom.

Brimstone… How could a good God allow such evil in the Davidic Dynasty or Royals Dynasty… Copy/paste below

I hate this injury and not because I don’t think we have the talent to lose Soria. In that regard I think we will be fine. What bothers me is from a fan perspective and a leadership roll. The fan side of me sees Soria as the only notable Royals player of the last five years (aside from butler, and one good season of Grienke). He was the guy that excited the fans, he caused them to stay until the ninth inning, and he was our good player. Now I hope our young guys will continue to improve and we will have several Soria type players, but that takes some time to build up. Also, the leadership part of it. Who is on our pitching staff that has been a Royals player for a while, and deserves respect? I’m drawing a blank. The closest person to fitting that bill is Hochevar, and forgive me if I don’t expect him to recreate his second half last year for an entire season(though I hope he does). So while I think day to day production the Royals will be fine, I think the other parts of the game will miss Soria.

Written by Ted about 3 years ago.

So where does Bourgeios fit into the 25-man picture? No more Maier? Dyson? Is this to give Cain a caddy, or a replacement option if he fails to impress…both?

Written by Zack Daddy about 3 years ago.

Crying to trade Soria in hindsight is easy. Moore reportedly was trying to move Soria for a legit SP which is reasonable for a stud closer under team control at a good price for 3 yrs. Didn’t get it so keeping Soria at $6 million is a no brainer. Now, it looks as if the plan was an oversight. Not so. Just bad luck. Soria should have stayed a Royal. He should have been around as KC improved. He coulda been our Joe Nathan (Twins era). Alas, here we are. No one to blame. Not management. Not the pitching coach. My god, the guy already had TJ surgery which is why he was moved outta being a starter and put in the bullpen. Realistically, Soria was a great find. He was a great Royal (still is).

If anyone wants a laugh/to lose their faith in humanity, check out the Royals Facebook fans’ reaction to the Quintero trade
Favorite one “Wat do we need a cathcer 4? 2 block Perez? O wait, I forget we r gona trade him b/c he is good”

Written by Big Lee about 3 years ago.

Ted-I wondered the same thing about Bourgeios. Not saying that he isn’t a useful piece, I’m just not sure the Royals need him. Saw somewhere that he can play 2B. We seem to have several superutility guys, including Falu.

Written by Zack Daddy about 3 years ago.

I think adding Bourgeious does this…it puts Yuni at 2B. Keeps Kooz on the roster. Bourgy will be the super utility guy, a RH pinch hitter/runner. Mitch is LH pinch hitter.

No need for Dyson with Bourgy’s speed. I’m still not convinced Pena is the catcher, first or second.

Overall, good trade.

Written by Big Lee about 3 years ago.

ZD-You think Getz and Gio both go down, or one of them be cut? I guess one could go to NWA, as long as Colon stays as SS. He needs to continue to get ABs. Is Gio a candidate for the DL? Reports are he does not look good.